Pitiless
by Anduniel
Summary: Strong PG-13, due to disturbing elements, Anakin and Amidala's last meeting. Dark Vignette. AU written prior to Ep III, but it's pretty close.


Pitiless 

Disclaimer: I obviously own none of this, merely a sincere form of flattery.

Warning: character death. Dark side is used. Love hurts.

In a distant corner of the galaxy, on the edge of the Altreides system, a small transport ship floated helplessly through space. Circling menacingly, an imperial fighter sent a short transmission, and the transport ship dropped its shields.

Amidala had known for three years that this moment would come. The minute she had heard the rumors of Darth Vader. They had always felt strongly connected to each other. He had told her once after they were married that they were bonded through the force: that if something should happen to one the other would feel it. That was how she knew he had survived the duel. It was how she knew to let Obi-Wan cloud her mind during her labor. Anakin had been there, in the back of her mind, as she had screamed and fought to bring her children into the world. Underneath the pain, her own exhilaration and exhaustion, she had felt a current that had not originated from her. It was distant, like someone shouting against a strong wind, and it spoke oddly of hope. The memory of that faint presence had haunted her.

There were times when she had been playing with Leia, and the memory would rise unbidden of the last time she had seen Anakin. His eyes had been like stones, or the windows of a silent house. The emptiness had frightened her- there was no warmth in them, no love, and no hope. She had the impression that if she cared to enter the house of his mind she would find all sorts of dark and ugly things. Those empty eyes had been set in an equally blank face, but she felt the pain in his heart, and knew that turmoil well. It was a mix of feelings all too familiar in the galaxy now: fear, hatred, apathy and most of all the bitterness of failure, the emptiness of betrayal.

The fighter drew alongside for docking, and the docking gear gasped as it sealed the two ships together.

She had felt him coming closer for some time now, a darkness in the back of her mind. A steadily growing and swelling turmoil that lodged in her heart, as sharp as rage and as poisonous as despair.  

Datachips and holopads clinked as she swept them into a pile. She quickly gathered what information she still had of her friends and children. The pilot brushed past her, frantically destroying the ship's memory. She placed in the small pile in front of her the last remnant of her former life, a holo of General Kenobi with an infant boy in his arms.

She had not seen Obi-Wan in years, but she recently received a message from him, telling her to flee. He warned her of the dangers of facing Vader, that the dark side was both powerful and subtle. 'You wont be able to save him, and he will kill you if he finds you.' That warning had called to mind the first time she had met him, and the similar words Master Jinn uttered to her long ago, when she and Obi-wan were still young. She believed his warnings, yet she longed to see Anakin one more time. Part of her couldn't help but remember that joy, that hope that had presided over the birth of her children. If she couldn't, then perhaps they could rekindle those awful empty eyes. It was that hope that made her linger on Alderan, but finally her maternal instincts proved stronger than her pity. She needed to keep her children safe. For that she would die. For that she was willing to destroy Anakin. So she had abandoned her daughter to keep her safe, and she had let her son disappear into the vastness of space for that same reason. Yet whatever pain she was willing to bear for the sake of her children she would also bear for the sake of her husband. She could not leave him to the torment of the dark side. Qui-Gon Jinn, if he had lived, could have told her that what people called pity was merely a whisper of the living force, an understanding of the force's presence reflected in another. He had died on Naboo decades ago, after taking pity on a small slave boy.

The sound of blaster fire shook her from her musings. She turned her own blaster on the pile of memories in front of her, turning it instantly into a smoldering pile of melted metal and a cloud of acrid smoke. Now a deadly silence had pervaded the ship. Then slowly approaching she heard a heavy and measured tread, the sound of someone breathing in sharp gasps, and the unmistakable hum of a lightsaber.

The doors of her quarters swept open, and she braced herself to face her husband one last time. Instead she looked upon a monster. All black and cold, gasping with artificial breath, it stood stiffly in the doorway. Anakin's face had been replaced by an impassive visor, which mockingly reflected her own terrified and harried face. Yet beneath the entirely inhuman, vile and cruel exterior, it was Anakin.

"Anakin!"

"Anakin is dead my queen, just as you will soon be." His voiced startled her; it was pure machine, remote and cold.

"No, Ani is not dead. He will save…"

Charged bolts cut off her heroic words. Her mind barely had time to register amazement at the lightening shooting from his fingers. Her body jerked and writhed gracelessly on the floor. She smelled burned flesh, herself burning. Was this how he had felt? Now, from the depths of her agony, she began to feel closer to Anakin than she had felt in a long time. So this is how it felt to be consumed by hatred. From far off her screams came to her, nonsense inhuman screams that reminded her of her labor. The memory of her labor rose firmly in her mind, and reminder that there were some things that couldn't be shared: memories, feelings … and knowledge.

No, Vader must not know and must not guess. Focus only on Anakin. 

"Ani," more like a groan, the cry escaped from her lips.

He advanced on her now, and with each leaden step he spoke, and each time he spoke her mind felt like it was going to cook in her skull.

"I loved you, it was you who turned your back on me!" 

It was the cry of someone in pain, and she had to fight the urge to run to him, to explain that he had made a mistake, that she loved him still.  
  


"You ran off with Obi-Wan," he snarled.

The snarl bore like a worm into her mind, hateful and ugly. It felt dirty, and as she squirmed under its touch, a great desire to be exonerated almost overwhelmed her.

"Where were you when I needed you?" This time he whined like a small boy.

Through pain-glazed eyes the dark figure before her seemed to melt, she saw a young slave boy in rags, a child filled with hope and sadness.

"Where is the child Ami?" Tenderness entered his metallic voice. Tell me… the voice said… tell me and we can turn back time, be as we were.

She remembered the apprentice who had flirted so earnestly with her and she felt her heart quake. Even the dark and deadly outline that loomed above her recalled the young man who had grieved for his mother… and the memory…   

Then Leia's open and smiling face, so tiny and happy and trusting, was before her. Luke's bawling red mouth as she surrendered him into Kenobi's arms. Amidala felt the her fierce love for her children rise in her, enabling her to expel the tender pity that had once been so much a part of her. It did not leave her at once; it was deeply rooted and only torn out with a series of painful spasms. 

Her eyes filled with tears that told him nothing. 

"Ani…"

He was inches from her now. Obi-Wan's warning rang in her ears. There was a physical emptiness in her own heart now, and for the first time she saw Vader. Cruel, inexorable and terrifying, he stood before her like a stranger, a hateful statue. She couldn't defeat Vader with love, so she reached for the hatred in him, felt it grow and burn in her. Mistrust, disgust, and finally she felt that horrible burning rage, the rage that comes from fear, fear deep down inside. Then she descended into terror, not for herself, but the terror that people feel for ones they love. She wanted to hurt him now, this creature that had destroyed her family. She felt the desire to be cruel, and with the sense of power that cruelty brings she replied.

"Dead."

Amidal caught her breath as he froze, then realized he was scanning her mind. How much could he see there? It was true in a way, as long as he was Vader any children of his were dead to him. She watched the way his head inclined, and she felt the last bit of his heart burning away. Then a terrible cold washed over her- he knew what she had done! Somehow he knew that she had lied, and even worse he understood why. This last knowledge sunk in that she had sacrificed the last strand of their love - for nothing. He knew now all that she had struggled to keep from him. The fierceness she had called upon in her need left her, and it left her ashen and burned. Heavy with the weight of despair, seared in mind and body, she floated back into her memories…

Anakin advanced slowly on the all but unconscious figure of his wife.

When he felt the fear in her he knew it to be something new and strange – Amidala had never feared for herself, had certainly never feared him. No, there was an outside factor that motivated her desperate foray into the dark side. She had given up her future, her beliefs and now her life for her love. What would she give up her love for? The seared flesh behind the mask twisted to a half grin. His child lived, and Obi-Wan would rear it, and in time he would claim it. Turn it to the dark side, just as she had begun to turn.

He walked to her and picked her up. She curled in his arms, silent and small, and he remembered the first night that he had slept with her. Instantly the memory came to him, and he knew from the clarity that she thought of it too. Her body was shutting down and he could feel the force leaving it. The force fled first when people died, the warmth stayed a little longer

"Bring her to me," sneering and hateful, the voice of his master. 

For one moment his thought rebelled and a horrible cold began to creep in upon him, then his rage boiled in him, making him strong again. Now that she was totally his, physically and mentally, he allowed his mind to open to her one last time. Though he could not admit it, he wanted to sense just once more, the sweet and radiant love that his universe had once revolved around. Like a ray of light it came to him, yet it felt cold and painful. No, he disliked this new Amidala. The dark side suited her ill, it had left a stain on her perfection. He slowly traced his metallic fingers across her soft check and then slipped them around her throat.

"Ani…" 

His fingers on her throat tightened, trapping the last of her breath. He felt her heart beating wildly, until at last it slowed, skipped, quieted. Her eyes glazed. Never loosening his grip, he whispered softly,

"Vader, love."


End file.
